Legendary Film Composer to Conduct BSO Tuesday

By “legendary film composer” I mean John Williams, of course — the man behind the scores to Star Wars and Indiana Jones and E.T. and Jaws and Superman and Lincoln, etc. Williams will be conducting the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in a program entitled “John Williams Movie Spectacular” at the Mayerhoff on Tuesday to benefit the musicians’ pension fund.

And, unsurprisingly, he couldn’t be more psyched. The 81-year-old composer has never been one to get irritable at achieving almost exclusively within the film soundtrack scene nor for being associated most heavily with themes he wrote decades ago now.

It’s in this typically affable mood that Williams gave an interview with the Sun‘s Tim Smith. He said he hopes that “in some small way” he can be of help to the BSO by doing the concert. He spoke a little about how he found himself in the conductor’s role, and his persistence in composing with a pencil rather than a computer.

All right, bust out those shark costumes and start rolling your hair into side buns! We’ve only got a day!